It was the mid-seventies. I was an engineering student in Mysore. I was an avid concert goer and listened to a lot of music on the radio and also read a lot about music – Karnatak, Hindustani, Western classical and Jazz. So, it is no surprise that when I read about a sitar concert by Pandit Ravi Shankar in Bangalore. The lowest priced ticket was Ten rupees. I could perhaps travel to Bangalore and be back with an expenditure of twenty rupees. So, it sounded doable.
With great hope, I asked my father if I could attend the concert. He said with great calm and decisiveness, he said, “One should not spend that kind of money on entertainment.” Period.
I was terribly disappointed. But the decision was final – in one sentence.
So, you can understand my disbelief when I read this in the morning today: There will be three concerts by the rock band Cold Play in Mumbai in January 2025. The ticket sales started yesterday online by Book My Show. The tickets were sold out in two minutes in spite of the server crashing. Within minutes, and according to some reports – even before the sales opened – resellers were offering tickets at a whopping 900, 000 rupees. Yes, you read right.
Reports say that computer savvy geeks have created bots to buy the tickets within seconds of the sales opening. What I can’t understand is why anyone wants to attend the concert in the first place. Former fans of the band tell me that the band leaves them cold and it no longer “rocks” and they sound repetitive.
Shakes head . . .
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